Chapter 98
Rhetoric and eloquence; persuasion, oratory and the art of style.
424 passages · 148 principal · Covers the 49 volumes of primary texts
Rhetoric is the art of speech aimed at another mind. It covers how a speaker or writer moves, pleases and persuades, the choice between ornament and plainness, the training of the tongue and pen, the voice and gesture that carry words, and the uses of persuasion in assemblies, courts, pulpits and private dealings, honest and dishonest. It is a great idea for these books because they are full of men who lived by it. Plutarch’s statesmen win or lose cities by speaking. Pliny’s letters are largely about pleading. Augustine was a professor of rhetoric before he was a bishop. Pascal and Locke reflect on persuasion as philosophers, and the poets show it at work in gods, tempters and foxes. The old question runs through all of them: is eloquence a servant of truth, or a power indifferent to it?
On the end of the art there is wide agreement. Plutarch, citing Plato, calls rhetoric the government of souls, an art that plays on the passions as on strings and keys, and he shows Pericles leading the people by it1. Sidney makes persuasion the chief mark of oratory2, and Hume says flatly that the object of eloquence is to persuade, as that of history is to instruct3. Pascal gives the point a political form: persuasion is the mind’s right of rule, as command is the ruler’s4. Tacitus finds the same among the Germans, whose speakers prevail by power to persuade rather than authority to command5. The ancient image is Aeschylus’ Athena, who turns the Furies from wrath with soft words and thanks Persuasion for strengthening her tongue6,7. Milton’s Christ prefers winning willing hearts to force8. Pliny adds a practical note: even a plain benefaction needs eloquence before the public will accept it, as patients must be persuaded to take a wholesome regimen9.
How persuasion works is a further question, and Pascal pursues it most deeply. Men consent through the understanding or through the will10. To persuade, therefore, one must know the hearer’s mind and heart, and persuading consists in pleasing as much as in convincing11. The art of pleasing is harder than demonstration, because the principles of pleasure are unstable and differ from person to person and from moment to moment12. Eloquence, he says, works by sweetness rather than authority, and it must join the pleasant to the real, drawing the pleasant from the true13,14. It needs a correspondence between the hearer’s head and heart on one side and the speaker’s thought and expression on the other; the rule is to study the heart of man and be simple and natural15. Hume likewise asks the orator to fit the genius, opinions and prejudices of his audience16. Mill read Aristotle’s Rhetoric as a scientific treatise on human nature17. Against this study of the audience, Goethe’s Faust insists that persuasion must flow from the speaker’s own heart, not from polished harangues, while his pedantic assistant Wagner thinks delivery is everything18. Emerson reconciles the two: the orator finds that his most private presentiment is what his hearers most accept19.
The sharpest quarrel concerns truth. Socrates opens his defense by setting his accusers’ ornamented persuasion against his own plain speech, and he counts true eloquence as the force of truth20. Augustine, once a dealer in words, learned the same lesson through the Manichee Faustus. Polish does not make a thing true, and rude delivery does not make it false; eloquence neither proves nor disproves21,22. With Ambrose, by contrast, the truth entered along with the eloquence he had come only to judge23. Pascal warns that eloquent discourse can make falsehood seem true, like fine dishes that starve the heart24. Penn grants rhetoric truth and beauty but finds that it more often serves ill turns25. Plutarch records Cicero admitting that he had praised and blamed Crassus merely to exercise his eloquence26. Carlyle presses the charge furthest. He sets the natural Orator, who persuades without knowing how, against the Rhetorician, who can only prove he ought to have persuaded27. He then prefers Phocion’s few true words and the rap of his staff to all of Demosthenes, and calls eloquence cut off from truth horrid28,29. Stevenson says the art is a mere accomplishment unless it serves truth30. Hume’s position is more moderate: abstract reasoning should keep its rhetorical flowers for other subjects31.
Bound up with this is eloquence’s hold on the passions and the multitude. Euripides’ Hippolytus says rude tongues suit crowds, while the wise few understand plain speech32. Virgil, in his simile of the grave man who calms a riot with sober words, shows eloquence quelling passion33. The moderns are more wary. Browne observes that pulpit invective moves the vulgar, who heed rhetoric more than logic34. Hume writes that the highest eloquence captivates the fancy and subdues the understanding35. Burke locates rhetoric’s power in sympathy rather than clear description, and he warns that warm tones and bombast sway us unless good sense stands guard36,37.
The controversy over style divides the books almost evenly. Pliny is the great defender of copiousness. Against a friend who admired brevity, he argues that Demosthenes and Cicero outrank Lysias and Cato, that repeated strokes impress the mind, and that the orator must scatter varied arguments like seed for varied hearers38,39. Abundance, he holds, signals a fertile genius40. True oratory must also be bold and elevated, as a pilot shines only in a storm, and he defends daring metaphor by the practice of Demosthenes and even of his critic Aeschines41,42,43. On the other side Montaigne finds Cicero’s prefaces and divisions tedious wind and leaves such eloquence to schools and courts44. He holds that speech aiming at truth should be plain and unpolished45. Sidney mocks affected imitation of Cicero’s figures46, Marcus Aurelius renounces fine writing47, and Machiavelli strips his book of ornament so that the matter alone may recommend it48. Pascal’s maxims belong here too: true eloquence makes light of eloquence, and a natural style delights because we find a man, not an author49,50. Shakespeare’s Polonius, praising brevity at length while the queen asks for more matter with less art, satirizes the whole affair51. The plain style has its own heroes in later critics: Swift’s thrifty prose52, and Lincoln’s honest logic, which appealed to intelligence rather than prejudice53. Emerson calls the art of omission a chief secret of rhetorical power54.
How eloquence is acquired is answered first by examples. Demosthenes was drawn to oratory by Callistratus, and his first speeches failed for their uncouth style and weak voice55,56. Cicero retrained his voice under Asian masters57 and kept up daily declamation58. Pliny advises imitation, composition and comparison of speeches, and thinks it folly not to copy the best models59,60. Franklin trained his prose by rebuilding Spectator papers from memory and checking them against the originals61. Mill wrote speeches for and against Pericles62. The teaching of rules is more doubtful. Augustine remembers the rhetoric school as a school of pride, where he sold eloquence for gain and taught artifices for litigation, and he withdrew his tongue from that market63,64,65. Descartes holds that clear reasoners persuade best even without the rules66. Locke argues at length that set themes and taught figures do not make good speakers; eloquence comes from Tully and good English models67,68,69. Milton keeps rhetoric in the curriculum, but only after logic70.
Preparation raises its own debate. Plutarch’s Demosthenes held premeditation a mark of respect for the people and impromptu speech the habit of an oligarchical temper that prefers force to persuasion71. Yet the natural ease of Demades was admired72, and Pliny praises the extempore power of Isaeus73. Pliny also defends reciting written speeches before audiences, because awe of hearers makes an author a sharper critic74,75. Locke prefers extempore speaking on matters one understands to set compositions76. Mill, lacking fluency, won his ear for telling sentences by writing speeches out and trying them on listeners77.
Delivery receives high honor. The actor Satyrus showed Demosthenes that gesture and enunciation give language its grace78, and Cicero studied the actors Roscius and Aesop79. Bacon reports that Demosthenes ranked action first, and drily explains why: most men are fools80. Pascal notes that tone and a bold manner change a discourse’s force81. Franklin measured how far Whitefield’s voice carried and compared his rehearsed delivery to music82. Hence the doubt whether a speech survives in writing. Pliny thinks the voice, countenance and bodily emotion of the speaker give oratory its spirit, and that reading loses them83,84. Pascal observes that some speak well who write badly, being warmed by their audience85.
In public life the books show both the glory and the danger. Pericles rose above mob oratory with calm countenance and even tone86,87. Demosthenes moved the Thebans to choose honor over fear, and Philip shuddered at a man who could make him risk his empire in a few hours88,89. Cicero calmed a rioting theater and defeated a law by speaking90, and Caesar’s speech nearly carried the senate91. Sidney admires Menenius, who won the divided people with a homely tale rather than figures92. Franklin’s addresses mixed appeals to profit with hints of force93,94. The dark side is the demagogue. Aristophanes blames the love of harangue for the demagogues deluding Athens95. Plutarch’s tribunes stir the people with alarming charges96, and his Antony inflames them with Caesar’s bloody garments97. Manzoni shows parties winning a crowd by a cry fit to excite passion, and Ferrer quieting a mob with slogans and promises of bread98,99.
In the courts Pliny laments hired applauders, so that the worst speaker gets the loudest praise100. He finds that an orator’s business is sometimes silence, which once won him more applause than any speech101,102. Wit is a doubtful weapon. Cicero’s ready jests won cases but earned him odium103,104. Demosthenes kept his mockery for extempore retort105. Mill asks that honest advocacy exaggerate nothing against opponents106, and Sydney Smith parodies the stock evasions of parliamentary debate107.
Sacred eloquence repeats the quarrel of truth and ornament with higher stakes. Paul disclaims persuasive words and relies on the demonstration of the Spirit108. The young Augustine found Scripture unworthy beside the stateliness of Tully109, and Milton’s Christ prefers the prophets’ plain style to Greek and Roman oratory110. Yet preaching shows great power. Walton describes Donne’s sincere sermons persuading hearers to amend their lives111. Whitefield made Franklin empty his pocket against his own resolve112. Suspicion persists all the same. Herbert resolved on plain language after a florid first sermon113. Woolman warns ministers against kindling their own fire of oratory in place of the gift114. Pascal admires the gospel’s freedom from invective115.
The abuse of persuasion is a favorite theme of fable and poetry. Aesop’s fox gets the cheese by flattery116. Chaucer’s fox flatters the cock into shutting his eyes, and is then flattered in turn into opening his mouth117,118. Bacon classifies flatterers119, and Cicero notes that covert flatterers feign dispute before they yield120. Hobbes observes that eloquence seems wisdom and, joined with flattery, wins adherence121. Milton gives the type its fullest form. Satan addresses Eve like an Athenian or Roman orator, using zeal and flattery122. Belial’s tongue makes the worse appear the better reason123. Comus’s persuasion is false rules dressed in reason’s garb124.
Private persuasion, finally, asks for tact more than splendor. Pascal advises that to correct a man one should first grant where he is right, since people are persuaded by their own discoveries125. Franklin found that modest, undogmatic expression carried his points although he was a poor speaker126,127. Bacon judges discretion of speech above eloquence128. Mill’s father showed him Demosthenes insinuating thoughts by degrees to avoid opposition129. Manzoni’s Count bends the Provincial to his purpose by studied politeness alone130, and Stevenson thinks that explaining a fault to an angry friend demands more eloquence than any oration131.
The books do not settle whether eloquence is the force of truth or a power that truth must borrow. Socrates, Augustine and Carlyle stand on one side; Pliny’s love of copious art and Pascal’s science of pleasing stand on the other, though Pascal ties pleasure to the true. The ancients mostly trusted the trained orator. The moderns doubt the rules, prefer plainness and fear the crowd. Whether art can be learned without becoming artifice remains an open question.
Introductory essay written by Claude Opus 5.5 from the outline and the notes on every passage below; quotations are checked against this edition.
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